In less than five weeks, Americans will know if they’ve shaken off the shackles of stupidity that have plagued our country for almost two years.

No midterm election in my 72-1/2 years has carried the weight of this one. All that’s at stake is the fate of democracy in the United States, the stability of the world order and the lives of millions of people here and around the world.

No pressure.

Elections should always be about issues. This election is – and isn’t. Because the one overriding issue is our survival as a free country.

That freedom has eroded drastically since January 20, 2025. People are being picked up on the street or dragged from homes because – or despite – their immigration status. Journalists are harassed, insulted and barred by the government they’re supposed to hold accountable. Science has given way to superstition and nonsense, leading to unthinkable disease outbreaks. 

Commerce is stymied and traditional allies shunned on the whim of a super-sensitive buffoon.

So there’s no question that we need to vote out the pond scum occupying the U.S. Congress, the state houses and even our town halls. 

A message needs to be sent to the Republican Party that it has committed a mortal sin against the Constitution and the moral foundation of this country. And, as I learned when I was a good Catholic boy studying the catechism, mortal sins lead to hell.

But all this sturm und drang fomented by Trump and his sycophants have distracted us from real problems. The kinds of problems naturally occurring in a society in which humanity, technology and even the atmosphere evolve.

For example, we have wasted decades letting climate deniers believe they’re an alternative point of view. But they’re as much an alternative as the sun rising in the west. Climate change is affecting us more and more each year, and we can’t afford to let Trump and the special interests who enrich him.

We’ve seen disastrous storms plague Hawaii, wildfires spread across California and the Rockies. A weakened atmosphere allows smoke from Canadian forests to befoul the skies over New York. Superstorms roll up the East Coast – and the ability of scientists to track them has been thwarted by uncertain conditions above us.

Our government should be doing two things. One is to set standards that minimize further damage to the climate – encouraging electric vehicles and alternative energy generation. The other is to lessen the impact of weather disasters.

In New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to end the rampant flooding that occurs every time it rains hard is to plant more trees. Those trees are intended to absorb the increase in water output that’s occurring in storms.

It’s a small thing, and its success might be marginal. But that kind of thinking is better than doing nothing and shrugging it all off to bad luck.

We need to fix our transportation systems. Rail travel isn’t much faster than it was at the turn of the century – the 19th into the 20th, not the most recent one. Our air traffic system is one thunderstorm at O’Hare from chaos. While technology innovation has grown exponentially, innovation in how people and goods move across the country has barely budged.

Healthcare needs to be fixed once and for all. The Affordable Care Act accomplished a lot – it’s probably the most valuable piece of legislation passed in the contentious 21st century. But instead of building on it, Republicans have been eroding it. There’s debate in the Democratic Party about whether Medicare for All is the right solution, but everyone in the party wants expansion – not contraction – of healthcare coverage.

The intrusion of technology in our lives is scaring the hell out of people. Instead of looking at artificial intelligence as a way to improve our lives, a lot of us worry that it’s going to end up killing us instead. And the data centers that process all the technology that rules our lives is desecrating our environment and draining our resources, producing little benefit to people who live nearby.

We need to work with our neighbors – Canada, Mexico and the islands in the Caribbean – to solve these problems. Not create new ones with insults, disrespect and petty grievance. 

Maybe you have other things that you believe are important. Fighting crime. Protecting the vulnerable in our society. Showing respect to everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, gender identification, physical capacity or any other arbitrary criteria you can name.

But instead, the election that takes place on November 3 is about one issue. How do we take the steering wheel away from people who drive our nation like they’re drunk? How do we combat narcissism and the worship of a false god? How do we get back to the idea that there are three separate and equal branches of government in the United States?

It will start by throwing out the Republican fools. In the Senate. In the House. In the governors’ mansions. In the legislatures. In town halls and city halls. Hell, even in the town highway department.

There needs to be an overwhelming rejection of what has transpired over the past 20 months. Because if we don’t, I shudder at what life will be like starting in early January 2027.